


Glittering Draught

by bold_seer



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Cloak of Levitation (Marvel), Fairy Tale Elements, Loss, M/M, Magic, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Past Christine Palmer/Stephen Strange - Freeform, Pining, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-28 14:50:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15051539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bold_seer/pseuds/bold_seer
Summary: “Are all the fairy tales true?” he once asked Wong in passing, over ice cream, after an anecdote about a magical slipper of all things. “Or just the good ones?”Surprisingly, they turned out to be the bad ones when you were affected. Funny that.





	Glittering Draught

**Author's Note:**

> MAW: Stonekeeper, does this chattering animal [Tony] speak for you?  
> 
> 
> STEPHEN: Certainly not. I speak for myself.  
> 
> 
> \- _Infinity War_

“So,” says Tony Stark, walking carelessly past a row of mystical objects. Having invited himself into the Sanctum, he looks around, partly with a scientist’s curiosity, partly with not unfounded suspicion. Entirely like a child in a toy store who wants to touch all the marvellous objects that surround him. “Wong already got the memo, but unless he’s planning to bring you as his plus one, you should come. To my wedding.”

Tony doesn’t really know him. Had known him for hours on Titan. Has seen him crumble and return, in his physical body, to their physical world, where everyone knows Tony Stark. At least everyone on Earth.

(Does anybody really _know_ Tony, has anyone looked into his heart, looked at something other than the arc reactor and the suit, the treacherous voice in his head asks. He mutes it.)

But he has viewed 14,000,605 timelines that all involve Tony in one way or another. There isn’t anyone in this _universe_ who has more memories (real, not real) of Tony Stark. Not even his fiancée.

Stephen’s throat feels raw and scratched. “Thank you,” he grinds out. A social event will do him good. He rarely goes out for fun, confined to Bleecker Street when he isn’t battling mystical forces in other dimensions. Like some recluse in a cell on Mount Athos, contemplating life in silence, weary of the world. He’s never been a saint, but these days he resembles the men in those icons, faces drawn and serious, hands placed in a significant gesture. The Sanctum, secretive and outside time, could be a Skete.

And Wong is going. He spends his time with Wong, but doesn’t always spend that much time with him. Wong is torn in every direction, back to Kamar-Taj, having manned the New York Sanctum in Stephen’s absence.

“Sure,” Tony waves it away. Then, unexpectedly, his dark, intent eyes focus on Stephen. ”Do you have a cold or something? Your voice sounds rough.”  


Stephen meets his gaze. Regards the man. From the cut of his suit to the buttons on his vest, he takes in all of Tony Stark and is filled with a deep sense of disquiet and déjà vu. It’s as if he’s looking into a mirror from the past; Tony dresses like Stephen used to. Or – not. For all his taste in flashy watches and cars, he was a doctor, and doctors are a conservative breed. Tony is one of a kind.

Yet his past life now seems as remote as the top of Mount Everest. Reaching such heights without a Sling Ring. Or finding his way back. When the Ancient One left him there, when panic gnawed in his chest and his unsteady hands were getting number, more useless than ever, he had the brief realisation that learning magic might not be worth losing his fingers. That no longer being Doctor Stephen Strange, acclaimed neurosurgeon, wasn’t worth dying. Body shutting down. Heart stopping. That an unlucky mountaineer might, at some point, come across his frozen remains. And he wanted, badly, to live.

He’s taking too long to answer a simple question. He’s staring. He didn’t mean to stare.

“I’m fine,” Stephen says. He lowers his eyes and looks away. The Sanctum is an old building, and old buildings are draughty. If he’s getting sick, it’s nothing to worry about.

It’ll pass.

**

The weather is turning chillier. His blue robes have a high neckline, but it doesn’t protect him from the cool air. He should wear a scarf. _New York is cold_ , he thinks, _but I like where I’m living._ It’s his home. And the Sanctum is his residence. 

They’re outside a café, Stephen and Wong, Tony and Dr Banner. A curious group that recalls the day aliens attacked the city, demanding the surrender of the Time Stone. A group of scientists and sorcerers, men of science and men of faith.  


Himself, a doctor turned sorcerer, a man of science who became a man of faith. Although he didn’t, doesn’t believe in _a_ higher power, no one could be shown the wonders that Stephen has been shown and not _believe_. In his own power. In cosmic forces beyond human comprehension. He approached magic with the reverence he had once shown medicine. 

About to order – he knows Tony’s order; Wong’s is always a mystery – Stephen starts coughing uncontrollably. Banner and Wong turn to look at him, but Tony signals to the waiter. “Get him some tea, okay? Earl Grey, anything.” 

They sit down. “That’s your wizard thing, right?” Tony’s eyes flicker to Wong, then back to Stephen. His hand rests on Stephen’s shoulder. “Yoga and meditation and healthy living. None of this New York style 24/7 caffeine shots.”

Stephen nods and gratefully takes the offered cup, hands shaking only a little. It’s tea. It’ll do. Tony’s concern is unfamiliar. 

He sees, in his mind’s eye, a hundred other Tony Starks, who said or did something worth remembering. Tony Starks who don’t, strictly speaking, exist. Not in this timeline. Who exist somewhere else. Fighting. Dying by Thanos’ hand.

Tony’s concern is familiar, wrapping around him like a warm blanket. The Cloak of Levitation, left at the Sanctum. 

“Doc,” says Tony. “If that cough doesn’t clear up, you might want to see a doc. Take it from me.” He gives a bright smile and turns the talk to robotics. An enthusiastic Banner joins the conversation, with some input from Wong, who surprises them all. 

Stephen drinks his tea in silence. He watches Tony, hands in animated motion and his face so beautifully alive. He still senses the touch on his shoulder. The handprint.

**

At the Sanctum, Stephen draws himself a bath. Makes a list, in his mind, of symptoms and causes. Pharyngitis. Laryngitis. If he’s very lucky, both.

His larynx seems the most pressing problem. His vocal cords. 

It could be something serious. It could. Yet he feels a certain reluctance at seeking medical advice. The thought of meeting colleagues. People he’s worked with. People he’s met. People who have heard of Doctor Stephen Strange. About his (supposed) brilliance, his skill, his focus, his drive. His tendency to push others as hard as he pushed himself – none of those observations are untrue. He had been a talented, successful man who was difficult to work with.

But a bunch of the stories are bound to be less flattering. Doctor Strange, what an asshole. Not that a neurosurgeon with an ego was anything new; his had just been bigger than the average. A god complex?

He didn’t think twice about using his phone while driving, an extreme form of multitasking. He’s a doctor. He was a surgeon. He had seen, first hand, the consequences of more than one car accident.

Darkness. A crossroad. Imagining his own death comes easily. Would it have been a loss, he has sometimes wondered. That the loss of a life is always a loss is the sum of all principles he believes in. The loss of his surgeon’s hands, of his career, was a loss to the medical world. But aside from his literal or figurative death, for which he could blame only himself, he could’ve killed or injured someone else and then had to live with the guilt for the rest of his life. He isn’t sure he could have. He isn’t sure the man he was could have. Lived with the guilt. 

He turns even more reluctant when he thinks about the aftermath of the accident. Whispers in corridors: _Strange, they stitched him up crudely._ Memories of hassling old colleagues, who turned out to be as risk averse as he had been. No surprise there. 

After, he was in pain, excruciating pain, depressed and desperate enough to attempt anything, running out of money and options. But he also lashed out at the very people who tried their best to help him. 

Is it too late to apologise to his physical therapist? Thank him? 

He’s made a clean break with his old life, everyone but Christine, and feels _lighter_. Instead of saving one patient, receiving their gratitude and his colleagues’ admiration. Instead of inventing a technique that will save a number of patients, gaining him a prestigious award and his fellow surgeons’ envy. He can save the world, in an instant, without the world even noticing. No limelight. No thanks. It seems appropriate, after all that attention. Little good it did him.  


_I can handle this._ He was never an ENT doctor, but he used to operate on the brain. No matter how useful it is in keeping him alive, the respiratory system is a lot less complex than the nervous system. And he doesn’t particularly require urgent care. 

**

The symptoms persist. He feels the constant need to clear his throat. Or would, if speaking hadn’t gone from a moderately painful exercise to measuring whether every word was worth the pain. The only advantage of having his voice break down is that his hands seem almost functional in comparison. 

He could schedule an appointment. (Healthcare, what healthcare? He has gone from outrageous spending he could afford to overspending to living a frugal life and counting every cent.) He could consult Christine. But Stephen has always had good instincts. That, in addition to his work and his memory, his curse and his blessing, made him a good doctor. 

And he remembers something he has seen in a book. Not _read_ , or he would recall it in perfect detail. But a page he browsed past. He has a hunch. Right now that hunch is saying: his condition is magical, not medical. 

Time to hit the books. 

He portals himself to Kamar-Taj and bumps into Wong on his way to the library, almost getting tangled up in his own legs and the Cloak. Wong looks at him a little sceptically, where’s the hurry.

“Don’t worry,” he croaks out. ”Just research.” Before Wong gets in a word, one that is bound to be disapproving, Stephen disappears, cloak billowing, behind dusty spines to read up on magical ailments. 

He has a pressing concern. He has a hypothesis. He’s looking to confirm a diagnosis. Mixed with necessity, there’s something of a doctor’s curiosity, too. A fascination for the unusual that you can’t express in the presence of patients or loved ones, but, he concludes, is entirely appropriate when he himself is the case. When the body he’s meant to examine is his own. No wonder doctors had practiced on themselves throughout history. Questions fill his mind. Are there magical viruses? Bacteria he could’ve been exposed to in a different dimension? He frowns. Does magic protect him? Is he a danger to the civilian population? 

The Avengers, locked up in cages. But Stephen wouldn’t have chosen a side in that fight. Stephen observes. 

The volume opens on a random page that almost makes him drop the book. What looks like the magical equivalent of STDs, only their transmissibility seems infinitely more complicated than sexual contact without a barrier.

Sounds like a good time. He hasn’t, in a long while. With anyone. 

He scrolls backwards, forwards and – there.

“Wong!” He chases down the man, who looks unimpressed, as if he would rather be listening to the Spice Girls than hear whatever is on Stephen’s mind. _Wannabe_ , 1996. Peak chart position: number one. “Uh. How contagious are magical diseases? Viral infections? Epidemics?”

Wong shakes his head. “Not impossible, but rare. Curses don’t spread.” 

He was right. It’s his own health he has to lose. That is good to know. 

“Are you still unwell?“ Wong asks with more than a hint of suspicion. There’s probably worry behind that brusque exterior. They’re colleagues. They’re friends. 

_I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want_ , Mel B sings through the discarded earphones. 

“Looking up,” Stephen lies. As smoothly as his voice allows him, careful not to choke on the words. What Wong doesn’t know won’t hurt him. 

** 

“Are all the fairy tales true?” he once asked Wong in passing, over ice cream, after an anecdote about a magical slipper of all things. “Or just the good ones?”

Surprisingly, they turned out to be the bad ones when you were affected. Funny that. 

He sits down on the great staircase of the Sanctum, on one of the steps where Bruce Banner saw fit to crash land, to take off his boots. Shrugs off the Cloak, which floats away, a little hurt. But he needs to be alone. He needs to think.

With perfect recall, Stephen remembers every text he has ever read: Andersen, _The Little Mermaid_. He scans his mind, line by line. How did that story end? In death, everything ended in death. 

Stephen has died thousands of times in a very short span of time. Died in millions of timelines and felt every single one of those deaths. Been turned into dust and disintegrated. Died on the operating table, if only for a moment. Died, although the doctors made sure he _didn’t_ , before he ever knew magic. Stephen has lived through all of those deaths.

( _at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow_ )

It is not death that is painful, but life. Frail mortality. 

**

He retreats to the astral plane. 

Then his spirit flies towards the stars, where everything is silent and still. 

**

“Doctor Strange,” says Christine, voice light through the speaker. The computer screen stays motionless, betraying nothing. His webcam is a useless, broken thing, but he doesn’t have the money to replace the laptop. “I think a consulting doctor generally _consults_. Or at least makes the appropriate noises here and there. Lets others do the grunt work. Concurs and takes the credit.” 

“Sorry. I just –” Zoned out completely. 

“Is everything all right? You sound a bit subdued.” 

He thinks about saying, _I’m ill_. The words no patient wants to speak and no doctor wants to hear, _it’s getting worse_. That morning, he coughed up blood into his bathroom sink. In secret, though the Cloak hovered by him, after he’d cleaned himself up and opened the door. 

He remembers how the Ancient One died. Christine’s hand. Understanding the gravity of the situation, the weight of his new life and its burdens.

“Everything’s -” There are greater and lesser lies. He settles on: “Okay.” Okay isn’t fine. Okay is a relative term. He isn’t dying. Yet. And everyone’s dying. In the end. “I’m sorry, Christine.” For more than he can express in a sentence. 

She reads his meaning nonetheless. 

“Stephen, you know I don’t blame you for anything? At least anymore. You were an ass, a lot of the time. But I always thought that wasn’t all of you. It wasn’t really _you_.” 

Here is an irony. The words that hurt Christine the most are the words she would most easily have forgiven, had he talked to her. In his pain, he never asked for her help. Not with shaving, after a few disastrous attempts. He hadn’t even asked her for a place to stay, when he realised his medical debts were so large he could no longer afford _any_ apartment. Destitute, he left without a word until Nepal. 

Unless you communicate, it’s difficult for others to grasp the extent of your suffering.

“And I did, you know.” 

“Hmm?” Break the endless cycle. Of regret and past mistakes. Rebirth. Release. 

“Worry. You can talk to me, if there’s something on your mind.”

Christine is a better girlfriend (former) and friend (current) than he deserves. But of all the things the Ancient One said, the words he has taken to heart are – it’s not about him. What he deserves. It’s about Christine. Her empathy. What she has to give. Sometimes kindness is just someone being kind, not condescending or full of pity.

“You really are quiet, even for your mysterious new persona.”

He can hear her smile. He considers the offer. Accepting kindness is a learning curve. Maybe to start with, he can offer some of his own. He can listen.

“Tell me about the bullet. Right frontal lobe?”

**

That evening, he is utterly exhausted. He stopped by a deli earlier and couldn’t get a word out. If holding a pencil wasn’t beyond him, he’d write a note for future use. Relying on signs and pointing seems unwise; a tourist who understands everyone, though no one understands him. And he can’t constantly focus on his hands.  


Eating has turned into mechanics, chew and swallow. It’s turkey. Not what he thought he got.  


He makes tea. It burns his throat and his chest and his tongue, but that’s almost pleasant.  


Talking to Christine was more worthwhile than ordering a sandwich, anyway.  


**

“You should seriously, and I mean _seriously_ , liven this place up,” says Tony. He takes off his sunglasses, which are shaded in a reddish brown tone. It’s too gloomy to wear them inside; the difference between looking cool (shielding yourself from the world) and stumbling in the dark. 

For some reason, Tony keeps coming back to the Sanctum. It’s a neutral ground, of sorts, though it is Stephen’s ground. But it was never the Avengers’. It isn’t Tony’s home.

Some part of him realises that nothing bad has ever occurred to Tony at the Sanctum. A sanctuary. Stephen has worse memories of the place than Tony, unless you count the day their paths converged and where that led them. When the world was about to end, once again, and Tony’s good friend fell through the roof. 

“The point.” Tony places the sunglasses on a dark mahogany table. “Hate to cancel invitations. Feels tacky. Like we’re in kindergarten and not BFFs anymore. And you’ve got Wong for that already. If I had to pick which of you two wizards reads gossip blogs, I’m thinking Wong. Straight from the horse’s mouth: wedding’s on hold.”  


That seems reasonable, what with the intended wedding site turned into a giant crater. “Though maybe you saw the CNN footage.”

He has watched it, but chooses not to comment. “You’re Tony Stark.” His voice is hoarse and weak. With effort, he conjures up the energy to speak more than three words at a time. “You could book any venue. With an hour’s notice.”

On the surface, Tony appears flippant and unaffected. But there’s a twitchy, nervous energy about him and dark shadows under his eyes, tell-tale signs of too much coffee and too little sleep. His dress shirt in wrinkly, unironed. “With no notice. And yeah, could if I would.”

Stephen remembers very well what it felt like, being stabbed with a mystical blade. What it felt like, being impaled by Dormammu. On repeat. This is an entirely new sensation, as if someone’s jabbed him in the throat with a shard. A small instrument for great damage.

“What’s with the look, Strange?” Tony gives him a once-over. His eyes find Stephen’s. They are open, unguarded, reflecting some old hurt. Stephen doesn’t even breathe, seeing somewhere into Tony’s past, not his future. Then, as suddenly, it’s gone. Whatever connection he felt disappears.

“Getting kind of dying soprano, heroin chic vibes here. Pretty sure you don’t need to lose weight. Got any food here? We should catch up. I want the latest on Wong.”  


Tony leans in, as if they’re trading confidential information, close enough that there’s inches between them.  


“Does he _really_ prefer Backstreet Boys over NSYNC?” 

** 

One time, Tony Stark says _Stephen_ , before he closes his eyes for good. One word. His name. 

Stephen’s hands turn red with blood. Battered and broken, he relinquishes the Time Stone. 

It ends in a green flash of death. 

**

“What happened on Titan,” Wong speaks to him through the portal, the two of them separated and united by that fiery circle. Two men on either side of a current, on two sides of the world. “You traded the Stone for a man’s life.” 

He has always been a sharp cookie, sharper than most of the people Stephen’s known. 

“No. Yes.”

Speaking hurts. Thinking hurts. But these are the facts, make of them what you will: 

A million Stephens in a million timelines give up the Time Stone. He sees, fluttering like the wings of a butterfly, flashes from millions of futures for Tony Stark. He asks Thanos to spare Tony, because that’s what he’s meant to do. He’s sorry, because he knows Tony will suffer. They’ll die in every future. But in some, Tony will be _dead_.

He has a plan. He risks it. He knows nothing. He pins his hopes on Tony.

Sometimes he dies. Sometimes Stephen dooms him to a future worse than death. Sometimes losing everyone is what breaks him. But this Stephen, who sees the threads of fate lead away from Titan, delicate and translucent, gives up the Time Stone and begs the universe to let Tony _live_. 

Miraculously, everyone gets to live. 

At what cost? _The bill comes due_ , sooner or later. Maybe Mordo was right. The world was off balance after too many violations against the natural law. But magic was a holistic practice and rarely so quid pro quo. Rarely strictly good or evil, but balancing forces, as the Ancient One had shown.

Nonetheless, they were given the choice, the few hopefuls who found their way to Kamar-Taj, were allowed to enter the gates and managed, eventually, to master the Mystic Arts: to heal themselves or save the world. Sometimes there was no both in magic, only either or.

“And yet,” Stephen muses, hands brushing his robes, where he wore the Eye of Agamotto. “We have the Stone.”

Wong nods. “And Tony Stark has his life.”

With more nightmares and needless guilt. Stephen feels the pain in his chest, his heart. Acutely. It’s not fair, a childish part of him wants to argue. He only wanted to heal. Fix things. Help. Why must magic require so much?

The portal closes; the flickers of light go out.

**

He wakes up to a sensation. Though fuzzy on the details, the imprint of the dream lingers, so strong that he obeys the urge to check there’s no one else in his bedroom. There isn’t. Of course, there isn’t. He’s alone, as he always is. Even the Cloak is gone, off to wherever cloaks are at the witching hour.

Someone was holding his neck. It wasn’t a nightmare from Titan, though. Of Thanos crushing his trachea with his giant strength, tossing him aside like a broken doll. It was –  


His face heats.  


Someone else’s hands. On him. Someone else’s pleasure. In. Fuck. Literally.  


He’s hard.

Pleasure is rarely simple for him; it mixes with pain, the pain in his hands. A little pain can go a long way, can heighten the pleasure, a pinch of salt in a sweet bite. If it’s everywhere, pain is all there is. He’s not averse to mixing the two per se, but his masochism tends to manifest in other ways. And pain is his constant companion.  


He’s too tired to, too afraid of letting go of his dignity, of letting go, to think of a way to get it on.  


He closes his eyes and wishes the problem away.

**

Stephen stands at the gates of Kamar-Taj. He takes a laboured breath. The moon, an odd three-quarter shape, is his silent witness. When he looks again, a moment later, it’s disappeared behind some dark cloud. 

He enters the building, where he finds Wong by his desk. He looks unhappy. Which, to be fair, is a subtle change from business as usual. Hell of a poker face there. But if Wong, when he first knew him, had seemed perpetually _not_ happy – had, until he let out a startling laugh at Stephen’s quip, after the battle in Hong Kong – he now looks decidedly _un_ happy. The bearer of bad news.  


Wong nods at him. “I have a solution to your condition. You won’t like it.”  


Stephen holds up his hands tiredly. He’s figured out that much.  


“Without action, you will lose your voice completely.”  


( _“But if you take away my voice,” said the little mermaid, “what is left for me?”_ )  


_I can wield magic without a voice_ , he thinks. It is a loss, to be sure, but not the end of a career. Not the end of the world. In recent years, his priorities have shifted.  


_We are not prophets_ , said Mordo. How tempting it would be to use the Stone. To look, to search, to find an answer. Or 14,000,000 of them. He sighs, resigned at something horrible and painful, a cynic at heart. “What does the universe require this time?”  


“Either way, the pain will last,” Wong continues, no sugarcoating.  


Doctor Stephen Strange always valued a direct approach. Whatever his colleagues thought of him, he _could_ break news gently. And he did that sometimes with patients. It was in his own work that he called for commitment and focus. When lives were at stake, when minor errors could mean major loss of function, there was no room for second-guessing.  


However inflated his ego was, he knew he wasn’t infallible. He considered each case carefully. He listened to his team, if they had something worth listening to. He made what must have seemed like outrageous decisions, but only if he knew he could make them. You can’t be an insecure neurosurgeon. You can’t doubt your abilities when you operate. You can’t let them see your fear.  


Now he thinks he should’ve showed more empathy.  


“Unless you bargain for your voice.” Wong’s bedside manner is blunt and to the point. “Trade Tony Stark’s voice for your own.”  


“No.” He doesn’t even consider before he answers, horrified. It goes against any thought he has ever had. _Do no harm._ “I refuse.”  


On some universal, cosmic scale it may seem fair: Tony has his life back. (They _all_ have their lives back.) Although he communicates with his robots and tech, Tony doesn’t need speech to invent or build or even save the world. Tech can be altered to respond to non-verbal commands. Tony would find a way.  


But he cannot do that to Tony.  


He cannot do that to _Tony_.  


He cannot do that to anyone.  


Stephen is a doctor. He may have played a god in the OR, even outside it, but he never played with lives. And the pain is his to bear.  


“I healed people. I won’t tamper with someone’s health.” A dark thought and a darker deed. For all the grey areas of magic, lines he may have crossed already, limits he is testing, bending, this is wholly unethical. A cruel, unreasonable sacrifice.  


Wong nods, as if he expects nothing less. He also looks like he wants to add something, but is weighing his words wisely.  


“It doesn’t matter, Wong.” A thousand blades pierce his throat. Maw’s torture device. Sharp surgeon’s knives, cutting him open.  


_You’ve come to die._ Over and over and over again.  


It’s only pain. He knows pain. He can live with it. “I don’t need to speak. Hamir has no _hand_.” There’s a slightly hysterical note creeping into his voice, hoarse and cracking.  


“Stephen.” Wong seems more serious ever. Worrying, since they’ve faced potentially world-ending disasters together. “You must talk to Stark.”  


_While you still can_ goes unsaid. A dark undercurrent to an unwanted appeal.  


Stephen shakes his head. He can’t. He won’t.  


“About your –” Wong trails off, uncharacteristically hesitant. Uncomfortable. Sympathetic. There’s no pity or judgement.  


Oh. That other thing. Unrelated. Irrelevant. But somehow Stephen isn’t surprised that Wong has picked up on it, no matter how well he has guarded his secrets.  


No.  


“He’s engaged.” His smile is humourless. “He invited you to his wedding.”  


The first time he met Tony Stark (and Pepper Potts, even more briefly), he congratulated him on the engagement. “He invited me. Though he barely knew me. Barely knows me. I’m an acquaintance, at best.” He’s babbling, he knows. The words are flowing. Broken glass that makes his throat thick with blood.  


“I _can’t_.” A final declaration. Any other last words? “Not fatal, don’t care.” Even if it were, not at that cost.

“You told me once that the Sanctums form a protective shield. That sorcerers protect the Sanctums.” He hasn’t spoken this many words in a string in what may as well be forever. His throat is throbbing.  


It occurs to him that Wong doesn’t know what transpired in the Dark Dimension, although he must suspect something.  


He had shed his arrogance, like an old coat. And yet he was arrogant and foolhardy, when he entered Dormammu’s domain. Spend an eternity dying, but everyone else lives. And if his plan had failed, if the world was frozen still, what life would that be? If he had lost his mind after the first hundred deaths?  


He didn’t think about giving up the Time Stone. Later about not giving it up. Even though he knew the price was his own death, whether he died permanently or there was light somewhere behind the dark veil that obscured his vision. They weren’t prophets.  


But no matter what he’d lost in his life – before he became a doctor. Before he immersed himself in magic. Before he died. And died. He had never thought about losing. That sometimes, even though you bargain, sometimes you just _lose_.  


It’s not always as dramatic as death. Driving at night to an uncertain fate.  


He’s never going to operate again. He’s never going to drive. If he has his way, he’s never going to set foot in a car. The day his magic decides to give up on him, or he wears himself out, he’ll end up stuck wherever he happens to be, he supposes.  


There’s the saying, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Only that isn’t entirely true. His hands were central to what he did. He was careful with them. But he never considered the fortune of having steady hands. He never considered what he didn’t have, a tremor.  


He overlooked what he was left with. That he still had his mind. That he could’ve found another way, had he not been so single-minded. His hands are still central to what he does. Except in all the ways that they aren’t. And he draws his power from somewhere within.  


His hands are scarred and damaged, a simultaneous reminder of past and present. Of all the bad things. Experience. His life.  


Stephen Strange stands tall in the face of defeat. Not in surrender, but with grace and acceptance. A man who has made a decision he does not regret: “Sometimes we’re the shield. We take the hits.”  


Soon he will have a very convenient excuse for never confessing his feelings.  


Without another word, he steps through the portal.  


**  


Stephen looks around the New York Sanctum, _his_ Sanctum once more. It resembles a museum more than a house you live in. It could do with some repairs. But it is his home.  


Wong will probably come over later. Try talking him round; they are both as stubborn as can be. For now, he has company in the Cloak, which settles around him like a cat. It nudges him towards a side table with curved legs, where his phone lies abandoned.  


Doctor Stephen Strange, whose hands were crushed because he focused on a screen instead of the road, is the one person in the world who doesn’t carry a cellphone with him.  


In a clumsy movement, he lifts up the phone. His hand feels too large, too heavy. His heart hammers in his chest, as he looks at the screen.  


There’s one message.  


It’s from Tony.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by:
> 
> Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid – H. C. Andersen.
> 
> The following prompts, though not filling them: _Some magical entity (…) makes Stephen lose his voice and will only give it back once he confesses his love to Tony._ ([here](https://ironstrangeprompts.tumblr.com/post/174769136962/ironstrange-ausprompts-1)) and _Stephen has traded away his voice (Little Mermaid style!) as the price for receiving help from another sorcerer_ ([here](https://stephenstrangeisaho.tumblr.com/post/174648165904/free-ironstrange-prompt-stephen-has-traded-away)).
> 
> Quotes: Famous Blue Raincoat – Leonard Cohen. The Little Mermaid ([here](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fairy_tales_of_Andersen_\(Paull\)/The_Little_Mermaid)).


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